It is a fact that Amazon has become the pioneer when it comes to e-commerce technology and is currently the biggest e-commerce platform around the world in terms of brand value and customer service. However, we see that a lot of e-commerce platforms come up everyday in order to challenge Amazon as well as players that were in the traditional commerce industry have also started e-commerce as it is the trend right now and it is here to stay as well. One of them is Shopify which helps merchants create their own e-commerce stores and run them so as to not be dependent on Amazon or any other e-commerce company for their own sales.
Talking about Shopify, you must be aware that they have their own extensions as well which can be directly integrated into the stores you build from their platform but they are somewhat limited and that is where Shop Circle does their job as it provides a lot of useful software extensions that can be integrated to your stores as well. Cartechini says that “some merchants were working with up to 35 separate app providers to accommodate all of their needs across software, supply chain, inventory, upselling and marketing” and they realized that there is potential in streamlining this business and that is what they are doing. He adds that “The number of software [tools] utilized by e-commerce brands went up approximately five times over the last five years. We wanted to centralize everything under one brand, which is Shop Circle.”
Shop Circle functions as a “suite” of tools all under one umbrella, including everything from referral programs to restock alerts to a mobile app builder. Shop Circle solely works with Shopify sellers and offers merchants 37 different tools to build their businesses on Shopify. The company basically provides “budding e-commerce brands the tools they need to start, grow and sustain their businesses, such as online store design and inventory management”, as a report describes them. However, there is also a factor of lock-in where customers rely on a single brand for all their needs and they lose all their flexibility in this process.
